Regular endowment gifts: Inspiring donors’ habits
You and your team are certainly familiar with annual giving strategies to encourage donors to regularly support your operating budget. When it comes to endowment fundraising, though, many organizations tend to think about endowment campaigns as isolated events every few years, perhaps executed alongside a capital campaign.
As the fundraising environment gets tougher, especially in an election year, take a look at your approach to engaging donors in endowment giving on a regular basis, not just during the occasional campaign every few years. Indeed, national annual events like DAF Day, National Estate Planning Awareness Week, National Philanthropy Day, and GivingTuesday create strong opportunities to engage your donors in endowment-focused conversations.
The team at the community foundation is happy to offer ideas for ways to make regular, consistent giving to your endowment fund an attractive–and even habit-forming–practice among your donors. Whether a donor’s cadence of contributions is monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, or annually, the consistency delivers many benefits. Of course, your endowment will grow, which is a huge benefit. But your organization also will benefit from the communications and engagement opportunities. Here’s how:
–As individual donors’ contributions to your endowment fund grow over time, you’re able to show them how they’ve personally helped build that all-important nest egg to ensure that your organization’s mission stays strong.
–Consider periodically letting individual donors know just how much they’ve contributed to your endowment fund over time, and translate that amount into the income you’re able to devote each year to improving lives. When a donor sees what a big difference this can make in perpetuity, they’ll be pleased and maybe even surprised.
–Showing these results during a donor’s lifetime is an excellent platform for a serious discussion about the donor leaving a significant bequest to your endowment. It’s much easier for a donor to envision the future impact of an endowment gift when they’ve witnessed present impact.
Reach out anytime to the team at the community foundation. We’re happy to help you establish endowment-building strategies to ensure that your mission stays strong for generations. If your organization has not yet established an endowment fund at the community foundation, please reach out. There’s no better time than the present to begin paving the way for a bright future.
All are welcome: Embrace small gifts to boost your endowment’s future
Every organization dreams of that game-changing, multi-million dollar endowment bequest that comes as a complete surprise. Often it can seem totally random when we hear about a donor who leaves a major gift to a charity in a will, trust, or beneficiary designation. And sometimes it is unexpected. But in many cases, the “surprise” should not have come as a surprise because it was the result of years of careful seed-planting and intentional relationship-building.
Of course, nonprofit fundraising professionals are well aware that cultivating small gifts can lead to large bequests. The question is, though, how can you give your organization the very best chance of receiving a gift like this? Not surprisingly, it all starts with small steps that add up to big steps. Intellectually, we understand this. But it can be so hard to be patient. Stick with it, though! Never give up on letting your donors know that any size gift makes a difference.
Here are suggested messages you can use to encourage donors to consider making small gifts to your endowment fund:
We want to help you support our organization’s endowment fund at a financial level that meets your charitable giving budget. At every level of giving, your endowment support is a catalyst for improving quality of life. Whether your gift to our endowment fund is a $250 credit card donation, a $2500 check, $25,000 worth of appreciated stock, or much more through a bequest or IRA beneficiary designation, you’re making a difference. We’re grateful for your support because it helps ensure that our organization’s mission stays strong for years to come.
As you look ahead toward your year-end giving, you might be considering transferring highly-appreciated stock to your donor-advised fund at the community foundation. Remember that our organization’s endowment fund is held at the community foundation, too, making it very easy for you to use your donor-advised fund to support our endowment through year-end gifts of any amount.
Consider that small donations from a large number of people can make a huge difference. Please help us spread the word! Forward our emails, share our posts on social media, and tell your family and friends that every dollar given to our organization’s endowment fund paves the way for a brighter future in our community.
In so many ways, whether gifts are large or small or somewhere in between, philanthropy creates the margin of excellence that helps communities, families, and individuals thrive. The team at the community foundation is here to help you inspire your donors to support your endowment fund at every level.
Tips for your endowment’s annual appeal
2024 is rapidly drawing to a close! You’re likely making plans to send a letter to your donors asking them to consider making a gift as part of your annual appeal strategy. Don’t miss this opportunity to weave in messages about your endowment fund at the community foundation and how important it is for donors to support both current and future needs of your organization.
Here are a few tips and suggestions for crafting an annual appeal letter to inspire both current and endowment gifts.
Cast a wide net
Somewhere in your letter, be sure to illustrate the various ways donors can support your mission. For example, you could consider language like this:
Our community is better because of donors like you who’ve included our organization in your philanthropy plans and charitable giving practices. Perhaps you give every year. Perhaps you’ve established a designated fund at the community foundation to support our organization. Or maybe you’ve already made arrangements for a major gift to our endowment fund at the community foundation. You might have even updated your estate plan to leave a bequest or IRA beneficiary designation to our endowment fund. Whatever way you’ve chosen to support our mission, we’re grateful!
Offer specifics
Let donors know about a few of the very specific ways your organization has been making a difference. For example:
Thanks to our donors’ generosity in building our endowment fund over the years, our organization was able to add two case managers to our team this year. This, in turn, means that we can ensure that nearly 50 additional children can receive the care they need. Donor support has also enabled us to provide our case managers with iPads, vastly increasing the efficiency of reports and communication, which in turn means we have more time to spend one-on-one with the children we serve.
Tell them exactly what to do
A call to action is essential, of course, but make sure you offer options to make it as easy as possible for donors to make a gift. Offering options also shows that you are flexible and signals to donors that you’re open to a live conversation, which is the gold standard. Consider the following example:
We’d be honored to receive your gift in whatever way works best for you. You can donate online at [include URL] or mail a check to the address below. And, importantly, we’d be happy to receive your gift of appreciated securities, which can be highly tax-advantageous. Please reach out today to talk about a potential stock gift. We work with the community foundation to make it easy and seamless for you to make a gift to our organization’s current programs, endowment fund, or both.
For more ideas about how to engage donors through your annual appeal letter, please reach out! The team at the community foundation is honored to be your partner as you grow your endowment fund and expand your organization’s ability to serve our community.
This newsletter is provided for informational purposes only. It is not intended as legal, accounting, or financial planning advice.